Wilhelm II: Prince and Emperor, 1859-1900

A FEW DAYS before Christmas 1889, the British ambassador in Berlin reported that "the Emperor is off again shooting. It seems
impossible for him to remain quiet for more than two or three
days at a time."1 As soon as 1890, opened, Wilhelm II resumed the chase.
Immediately following his traditional New Year's Day reception, the Kaiser left Berlin for a hunt arranged by his friend, Count Guido Henckel at
his princely estate at Neudeck in Silesia. Next to Friedrich Alfried Krupp, Henckel was the Kaiser's wealthiest subject, and he lived in splendor
befitting royalty, sparing no effort to fulfill the family motto "Live for
the moment." Caviar as well as brandy were de rigeur even at the breakfast table, and the peasants on Neudeck's thousands of acres kissed the
hem of Countess Henckel's gown as she passed by. Wilhelm delighted in
such sumptuousness, and on this trip he derived great pleasure from
exterminating no fewer than 550 pheasants in a single day's shooting on
a neighboring estate.

In spite of the festive atmosphere, the Kaiser could not conceal his
concern at the steadily worsening crisis with Bismarck. Karl Heinrich
von Boetticher, the state secretary of the imperial Interior Office as well
as a Prussian minister without portfolio, was also Henckel's guest and
brought to Neudeck the draft approved by Bismarck of the royal address
for the opening of the Prussian parliament on 15 January. After scrutinizing the document, Wilhelm declared that it was unacceptable because
it contained no announcement of the government's intention to introduce a bill for the protection of labor (Arbeiterschutzgesetz). This was a
subject on which the Kaiser had laid particular stress in recent pronouncements, and in December 1889 he had circulated to the Prussian
ministry a memorandum that he, in consultation with his old tutor Hinzpeter, had composed on the state's responsibility for accommodating the
legitimate demands of labor. Shortly thereafter Wilhelm had reminded
the chancellor that improving the welfare of working people was a goal
very close to his heart.2 The strikes in the Rhineland and the collusion of

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